Fighting Fate
by lamexicana04
Summary: What happens when the Hand of Fate tries to take everything away from Lydia? Well it best recognize who it's dealing with, when not even fate can mess with The Ghost with the Most. Cartoon/Movie Version.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: Okay so first Author's Note, definitely gonna be a bit wordy. This is the first time that I've EVER written ANYTHING like this, so go easy on the critique sauce, por favor? :} However, opinions, comments, and anything else are welcome. Constructive criticism as well. I was inspired to write this a few weeks ago, when a dream that I had about Beetlejuice got me back involved with the show that I had loved so much as a child. I looked on here to see if there was anything, and was surprised to find that it seemed as though many other people had re-caught the Beej Bug (get it? lol) as well! Or maybe they had just never lost it. Nonetheless, I was pretty excited by the great works that I found on here and was inspired! I hope that this does okay; I have no intention whatsoever of not finishing this, come hell and high water (even if I get no fans). This is just for fun and I hope it will be fun for others as well. If not, well, then up your big toe and take THAT society! So without further ado….**

**DISCLAIMER: I own nothing. I'm too po' to own anything related to Tim Burton's genius. So, if you do sue me, you're SOL, cuz in the wise words of everyone's favorite, sarcastic poltergeist "Look, I don't care how Poe you are, I aint giving you any money!" (Nor do I own any humor related to cereal brands.)**

**P.S.-Chapter one will be a wee bit shorter than I plan for the others to be. Just how this writing thang works I reckon….**

Chapter One: Prelude/How had it come to this?

Clear liquid swirled in stale circles, the undrunk foam having disappeared long ago.

There were some thoughts that couldn't hide behind the veil of alcohol.

How the hell had it come to this? The Ghost with the Most had become the schmuck of fate. He had always prided himself on his complete lack of…. Well…. Anything that even remotely related to reasoning. He was a free spirit! He was free from all responsibility, free from guilt and, gawd, free from obligation.

And the Powers that Be had never given a damn.

Until now, when just a few acts of actual kindness, and from him of all people, dammit, would mean his ultimate undoing. Was he a tragic hero? Pshh. Hell to the no. He was karmas punching bag. Yet…. had _he_ been the one to pay for his sins, it would be different.

His hand tightened around the glass, oblivious to the fluid that escaped from the cracks and down his hand to gather in a puddle on the dirty counter top.

The one who had paid for his sins was also the one redeeming quality which he possessed. The retribution for his wrongs had fallen upon the spark within an innocent pair of wide, chocolate brown eyes, until that precious spark had flickered and died to be forever replaced by a cold, flat lifelessness.

Faces turned to watch as he shrugged out of the bar and into the night, eyes downcast. He pulled his long, brown trenchcoat closer around him. Despite the fact that he couldn't experience a chill from the weather anymore (being dead and whatnot), something on the inside of him seemed to radiate a cold that his body wasn't used to. It was a cold that could only blow through him from an aching emptiness somewhere around his dead heart. No one knew exactly what to think of Beetlejuice leaving without indulging in one of his usual shenanigans. Everyone there knew it was about Lydia, but everyone there also had the sense to keep quiet.

The street that he kicked up dust upon felt truly empty and lonely, not like the usual highway of opportunity that it had become for him just a few years ago, when he had that sweet and boundless energy walking beside him. She had taken this stale, dead road and shown him how to make the most of it with the excitement that she found in every simple thing. Much had changed.

How had it come to this?

Beetlejuice thought back to a night about three years ago when he sat at a rickety table in his roadhouse, fighting back the first sign of tears that he had even _considered_ shedding in 600 years, if not his entire existence. As he blinked away emotions that he would never admit to (he was still Beetle friggin' Juice fer Christ's sake) his vision blurred to a few nights before when it had all started….

He, as in _THE_ Ghost with _THE_ Most (you better believe it!), and Lyds reclined on his decrepit old sofa, watching some bogus 70's horror movie, where blood was still ketchup and ghosts wore sheets. The scenes seemed to belong on the rickety tv monitor, with its cobwebs forming intricate patterns from the screen to the leaning walls. Lydia loved his place. She called it "ethereal"; he called it "shit".

The poltergeist cackled recklessly in his usual manner, pointing at the movie. "Ha! Look at those fools, Lyds! Say, ya reckon that's where those Maitland yuppies got that idea? Amateurs…." He threw a beetle in his mouth and crunched down on it. "Lyds?"

He looked over at her and grinned. She had fallen asleep, head dangling over the arm of the chair and black bangs covering half of her face, a stark contrast to her alabaster skin. A small speck of drool glistened at the corner of her mouth. She was out.

Beetlejuice chuckled with a mix of amusement and affection. "Cute kid." He and Lydia had been best friends now for about five years. She kept reminding him that she wasn't a kid any longer, but he loved to tease her about it nonetheless. The quick defiance in her normally nurturing face always set fuel to his fire, and he picked on her about it all the more.

"I see that yer enjoyin' the movie too, Babes!" He snorted and picked at his red nails. "Fuddy Duddy horror flicks, ya know I love 'em."

Instead of poking her in the ribs and cackling maniacally to wake her up, as he was tempted, he conjured a dirty old blanket and covered her with a tenderness that would have everyone, from Jacque to Juno, questioning his motives. Sheesh, what's a guy gotta do to be trusted? He didn't much give a damn, however. Everyone was always suspicious of him, and he preferred it that way.

The only person who was allowed to trust him, and surprisingly enough, did in fact trust him, was Lydia. Though Beetlejuice had to admit, even that was completely unintentional. It had taken a few turns around the worst parts of the Neitherworld, sweat, blood, and loose gears to make the girl who had once detested him become his partner in crime.

But boy it had been a hell of a time; I mean a _hell_ of a time.

He lit a cigarette and thought back to the first time he had talked her into coming with him. She had been drifting around her room lighting candles (warm vanilla and sugar—a scent that the poltergeist would forever associate with as being purely Lydia). The small fires cast an unnatural glow around the dark purple walls of her room, throwing dancing shadows in every corner. Her canopy bed looked more like a giant death shroud.

"I'm not letting you out Beej. Last time I did that you tied up my parents and sent Barb to be sandworm munchies." She sounded almost bored with the argument as she slid gracefully from candle to candle.

He grinned widely and began picking his teeth as he reclined against her mirror frame and rested his ankle upon his knee. Somewhere in the back of his mind he noted, once again, that she didn't complain about the almost marriage part. "All in a day's work, babes. Anyone can learn."

She rolled her eyes and blew a loose strand of hair out of her face. Maybe it was wishful thinking on his part, but Beetlejuice thought that she looked unwillingly amused.

"Come on, babes! It's been months since all of those silly watcha-ma-call-its happened! Dontcha wanna meet legs, and bone head, and big fluffy, and all of those other creeps that I've told ya about? We'll even go get eye scream, and maybe even explore the Neitherwoods…."

It was an argument that he now knew by heart, so he was unprepared when his words seemed to finally have an effect. She was facing away from him, so he noticed her back stiffen in determination as she lit her last candle.

"Though I know I should be wary…." She began hesitantly. "Still I venture someplace scary. Ghostly haunting I turn loose! Beetlejuice!" Her voice rose with confidence. "Beetlejuice!" He dusted off his sleeves. "Beeltejuice!"

Cackling triumphantly, he jumped out and, for the first time of many to come, grabbed her hand. It was soft, warm, trusting, everything that he wasn't used to. And he came to the stark realization that he liked it.

He still remembers the sound of her petrified scream as they took that first leap through the darkness within her oval mirror….

"AAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHH!"

A few indignant spiders fell from the ceiling as Beetlejuice crashed into it, startled awake from his half asleep reverie. His cigarette had long ago burned out on his couch, leaving the 278th hole in the derelict, Swiss cheese lookin' sofa.

The scream had come from Lyds, who was now crying professedly in her sleep.

"Ha! Aww hell babes, yer havin' a nightmare." He shook her awake and watched her eyes roam around in confusion before finally settling on him and filling with relief.

"Beej!" She hurled herself at him and clung on tightly.

"Lyds! Yer gonna squeeze the death outta me," he joked. In all the years that he'd known her, she'd never been one to throw herself at people and cry; it put him completely out of his element.

"Beej…. It was all so real! There was a giant hand…."

"Ya mean that real handy guy that I beat at golf? Army or somethin' like that…."

She ignored the interruption. "….and it kept snatching all of the people that I love away from me…. Mom, dad, the Maitland's, you…."

"Aww babes I'm touched," he grinned in a light hearted way, trying to cheer her up to the best of his somewhat-limited-in-this-field abilities. He, of course, failed miserably as he reached over and began patting her on the head lightly, as if petting a puppy (_anything to change the mood, fer Christ's sake_). Lydia looked up at him in what she thought was reproachfulness, but only managed to look even more vulnerable, with her big eyes full of tears.

They (whoever _they_ are) say that the eyes are the window to the soul, but his Lyds didn't need that sorta thing. Her soul shown through every aspect of her character…from her warm little laughs, to the kindness that she gave to everyone-from misfits to worms and even (most surprisingly) to him.

Bj usually tried not to look too deep into Lyd's eyes, because instead of seeing her soul, he saw his own broken one, and it put a pressure on his chest that he wasn't quite sure about, and this time was no exception. He felt something deep within his psychological being shift and begin to change as he looked into her eyes. Something about it made him hold her tighter. He submitted to the urge to bury his face in her hair and inhale the familiar scent…. warm vanilla and smoke…. Like the candles in her room.

"I don't know what I'd do without you Beej," she nudged her face in his chest, snapping him off of whatever trail his mind had been beating within the forest of his thoughts. He'd never had a moment with her before that felt this serious. Shucks, hell if he'd _ever_ had a moment that felt this serious, period. It shook him up in a bad way, like a descending shadow was falling onto their carefree little playground of a world that they had built together.

"Look, kid, aint nobody goin' _nowhere_. And 'specially not me. It'd take more than the Hand of Fate to keep us apart! We're Bonny and Clyde! We're Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel! We're coo coo for cocoa puffs!"

Lydia sat back and slapped a hand over his mouth to end the torrent of nonsense. "I'm not a kid anymore," was her only response to all that he had said. She raised an eyebrow. Beetlejuice gave the girl a once-over, taking in her long hair, still messy from sleep, and her baggy red and black poncho hanging off of one bare, slim shoulder, the silky folds unable to hide her now very noticeable curves.

Bj sighed in defeat; as his mind tried, once again, to make that unfamiliar shift in his head. Definitely not a little girl anymore. "I know Lydia. I know."


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: Thank you to all that have read it so far, and a special thanks to my first ever reviewer Zim's-Best-Friend. :D I hope that the rest of the story is to your liking. If not, I'm open to constructive criticism and suggestions. This next chapter was not at all what I expected, the story pretty much slapped me in the face and said "Sit back woman, you might learn something." It's definitely not as dark as I wanted it to be and I'm a teensy bit self-conscious about it, but it was fun and that's what really matters! (: Hope you enjoy.**

Chapter Two: Changes

_Lydia walked down the familiar road to her home, bouncing a yo-yo up and down, Beetlejuice walking by her side with the usual smirk on his face. She sighed heavily, and he looked at her in concern. "I miss the Maitlands," she said in answer to the unspoken query on his face._

"_They should be back soon, Lyds. They've been gone, what, 4 or 5 years now? I mean, they just went to go see Juno, right? Really long lines and all, it can't take that much longer." Satisfied with the answer, she slipped her arm around his and continued down the path to her house. She inhaled the scent of trees as the wind caressed her hair like a soft spider web. It was such a perfect fall day._

_They arrived at her home, and he went invisible. Lydia stopped in her tracks. Something just wasn't right…. Something seemed…. Off._

"_Ya comin', Lyds?"_

_She stumbled forward warily._

_In the house, she was almost tackled to the floor._

"_Lydia! Oh, Lydia how you've grown! We've missed you soooo much! Oh Adam, come see how tall our Lydia is."_

"_Barbara?" Lydia gasped in disbelief and grasped onto the older woman, breathing in the linen scent of her curly hair and flowered dress. Tears leaked out of her eyes. "Barbara don't ever leave again I've missed you so much…," She croaked quickly and tearfully._

_Beetlejuice was watching in comic jealousy as Adam, too, walked over and grabbed her into a gripping hug. "And Adam, too! I've missed you guys! You have no idea; I have so much to tell you about!" They both sat back and grinned at her sheepishly._

_Then, reality changed, and everything took an unnatural shift into shadows. "Beej? What's going on?" Lydia stepped back, but nobody else had moved. They all just stood there, smiling shyly, frozen like manikins._

_Now panicking, Lydia turned and began to run through the house. "MOM! DAD!" Turning a corner, she skidded to a halt and came face to palm with a giant hand. Gasping so hard that she could barely move, Lydia backed into a wall._

_It wasn't that the hand itself was dark; it just seemed as though it were made of a solid wall of shadow. Dangling from its pinkie by ropes were her parents. Lydia barely could scream from the tightness of her throat. Blinded by her tears, she ran back in the hallway towards the front door._

"_Barb, Adam, Beej! Come ON!" She tugged at them with all of her strength, but to no avail. They simply stood, eyes empty as dolls, with those sickeningly sweet smiles on their faces._

"_Please, please, God help me! Help me!" Lydia ran to the door as the hand, slowly and calmly, scooped up Adam and Barbara, another string appearing to dangle them from its thumb. The hand turned towards Beetlejuice._

"_NO!" Lydia felt adrenaline course through her veins as she ran towards her best friend. She latched her body around him like a spider monkey. "You're not taking him! You can't have him!"_

_The hand moved towards her. Slowly. Calmly. The bodies of her loved ones dangled, the smiles still etched lifelessly on their faces._

_The hand reached her and its index finger began to tug at Beetlejuice. She grasped on tighter. "No…. No…." she whimpered weakly, feeling innumerous bodies bouncing off of an innumerous number of dangling strings…. "No…. No….."_

Ever since he had brought Lydia home earlier that night, and she had fallen asleep, Beetlejuice had been reclining mid-air next to her bed, planning what he was going to do later the next day. _It was, after all, a very important day._ Or at least it was important to Lydia, which in turn, made it important to him as well. He never would understand the grasp that the damn little breather had on his priorities. Lost in thought, the poltergeist almost missed the whimpering noises coming from the girl's bed.

"She must be havin' a nightmare again…. Huh. This really isn't like her." He floated onto her bed and rested his hand on her shoulder. What he really wanted to do was wake her, but the poor girl (_correction: woman_) really needed her sleep. She had a big day ahead of her, if all went according to plan. So instead, he tried a different approach. "Shh. Come on, babes. It's just a dream. I'm right here babes; I won't let anythin' hurt ya. Promise."

_Her grip on Beetlejuice was failing; the bodies all around her making her wanna gag and give up. Then, out of nowhere, Lydia felt a gentle pressure on her shoulder. The blackness of the dream, along with the monstrous hand, began to fold unto itself, until it faded away into a different black—the black of night time in the Neitherworld. Her surroundings abruptly changed. 'I'm on the outskirts of the Neitherwoods,' she thought to herself. The pressure was still on her shoulder, and she fearfully turned her body to confront what would certainly be another dangling, smiling body. Nothing happened. She slowly opened her eyes._

"_Shh. Come on, babes. It's just a dream. I'm right here babes, I wont let anythin' hurt ya. Promise."_

_Lydia's eyes watered in relief. She had been expecting another monster, and while Beetlejuice was considered by many to be such, the scruffy blonde hair and the piercing emerald eyes only meant one thing to Lydia._

_Security._

Lydia calmed down in her sleep immediately, and sighed contently. Bj breathed in relief, astonished that it had actually worked. Then something unusual happened. Let me just say that for the poltergeist to be caught off guard by _anything_ was something, being that he had been around the block a few times now and generally knew how things worked. He felt an overwhelming sense of exhaustion, something he couldn't recall ever happening in his Afterlife. It weighed upon him so much so that it felt almost as if he were being pulled forcefully into sleep, rather than just drifting.

"_Oh, Beej. I'm so glad you're here." Lydia snuggled into her best friend as closely as she could._

_He blinked a few times, seemingly in surprise, and wrapped his arms around her. "Of course, babes. Ya know I'll always be around when you need me."_

_Lydia giggled. Of course he would be this serious and sentimental; this was, after all, HER dream. She looked up at him and smiled mischievously, "Of course you will be…. IN MY DREAMS," she laughed at her sarcasm, and he laughed too, if only in a more subdued manner._

_That withdrawn laughter of his made her look him in the eyes. "Beej…. What's wrong?"_

_He shrugged. "Nothin' babes. Just was thinkin' that this really is a strange dream."_

_It really wasn't all that funny, but for some reason, they just couldn't stop laughing at that. The Neitherworld moonlight was doing something to their brains and casting a weird light upon the scene. _

_Lydia was thinking that his eyes had never before glowed so bright and gorgeous, when those eyes got closer and her best friend was kissing her in the middle of their giggling. She sucked in a gasp and her knees started to tremble. All rational thinking flew away, replaced by a mind numbing joy that she had never experienced before. She couldn't say for sure what the kiss itself felt like, because she had never kissed anyone before, and this was her dream. But she did, however, feel her knees getting weak and her blood rush to her head; he had to hold her up by pressing her closer, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. She kissed him back enthusiastically, never wanting this newfound joy to go away, feeling her heart pound so loudly that all of the Neitherworld must surely hear its drumming pulse…._

_Then everything went black for a full minute, before…._

"Ding Ding Ding! Time to shake a wing! Rise and shine birthday girl!" Beetlejuice had possessed her Dracula alarm and was now a bat, souring through her room.

She huffed in irritation and pulled her covers over her head. "No thanks, Beej; I'm taking a rain check for the day."

He plopped down on her bed and pulled her covers back. His proximity made her heart pound in her ears. She needed some time to think….

"But babes! It's your birthday! You're…. How old again? Thirty?" He raised an eyebrow, trying sincerely to look serious, but failing. Lydia couldn't help but laugh at the sight. How could he always make her laugh, even with her mind in turmoil?

"I'm 17 today Beej. 17." She sat up and put her hands on her hips, mimicking his raised eyebrow and serious expression.

"Ah to be 17 again," he donned a refined air, refined clothes, and a snobby accent. "To have the 1 and the 7 together in symbiotic harmony. That lonely 1 and that cannibalistic 7 that ate 9, which symbolizes…."

She socked him in the arm and he popped back into his black and white striped suit and his less than civilized manner. "Just sayin' babes! You only turn 17 once! Unless you're reborn when you go to the Neitherworld, and then you do it twice but…."

"Beej, don't you have something to be doing?"

"Oh, fish and chips, you're right! B words, babes, I gotta go home for a bit."

She rolled her eyes. She hadn't really known that he had something to do, but figured that it would work. "Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice." And he was gone.

Sighing heavily, she stood up and walked to her mirror, checking out her reflection. She didn't feel any older, but she certainly felt different in a way that had nothing to do with her birthday. She sized herself up. Her body had changed from the time she had first met her best friend. Her boobs had grown, not too big, not too small, and her hips had widened slightly, though her waist was still stick-thin, almost too thin, and her butt was too big. She had allowed her hair to grow out, but only slightly past her shoulders; it was too thick to let it get too long without it being a burden. Other than her appearance, she hadn't changed much. She was slightly more mature, slightly more knowledgeable. Yet, she was still fascinated by the macabre, by the strange and unusual. She had never kissed a boy and was, compared to everyone else her age at school, still childlike in her innocence. She couldn't blame it on Beetlejuice; gawd knows he was never much of a good influence. If anything, she was the exact opposite from him in that respect. She blamed it on her disdain for society, on her outcasted feelings. Her morals were high and she held them close to her heart like a life coat, keeping her floating above the waters that would pull her down and make her no better than the likes of people such as Claire "_I'm, like, better than yoooou_" Brewster.

She shuddered. Claire hadn't changed much, either. She was rail thin all over, and rumor had it that she was planning on going to get a boob job so that she could become an actress and a model. Lydia snorted. Acting was the last thing that girl would EVER succeed at, given past experience, but Lydia had little doubt that the girl would become a model. Lydia had asked Beetlejuice one day if he thought that she was pretty. Much to Lydia's relief, he had hocked a lugy and grimaced in disgust. "Ha! Pretty ugly. Girl has no figure and a plain face. Looks like every other whore that dies and comes to the Neitherworld."

Lydia sighed again. After patronizing him about calling Claire such an ugly word, she had asked him what he _did_ consider pretty.

"Well shucks babes, you are of course! Could you pass me that cockroach over there? I'm starvin'."

Lydia looked down at her feet, and back up to her reflection. Beetlejuice….. What had that dream been all about? Where had that come from? It had been so strange…. Strange enough that it completely blew thoughts of her other dream completely out of the water. She had, of course, harbored a bit of a crush on him from the time that they had started to become friends, but it was never anything serious, and she had barely spared it a thought. More often than not, she would forget that she even had a crush on the guy. The only time that the feeling came up was when he surprised her by coming through on saving her life, or on doing something good and listening to her. Other than that, it was nothing to write home about or anything.

But now? After that dream? She put her hand over her heart, still thumping a thousand beats a second. She couldn't forget the way that it made her blood rush, or the burning feeling in the pit of her stomach that she got just from thinking about it. What was she gonna do? She _had_ to talk to someone, but who would understand?

"Ginger." She ran to brush her teeth and throw her hair up into a high ponytail before bounding into her mirror.

**A/N: I wanted to add more, but it just seemed like it would be redundant to do so. Yes, the whole dream thing, including the part with Beetlejuice falling asleep, will have later significance, so keep it under yer hat!**


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